I’m nearly halfway through it and it is just absurdly good. Particularly when it comes to the Negro League players, he has a real desire to spotlight them and it shines in his writing.
1 Like
Is there a park that exists with worse/weirder dimensions than the Polo Grounds?
Giardi out. 3weeks overdue. What an ass.
1 Like
I’m glad that the Mets helped to blow out the candles.
1 Like
I chuckled when reading the following in the Physics of Baseball (2002), "Some fine athletes never seem to learn to “guess” the curveball trajectory and are not, then, found in the major leagues.
6 Likes
Angels losing 9-0, 'bout to lose their ninth straight
lol for about 30 seconds
Damn it. I really wanted that to be not-onion
2 Likes
I was really hoping to read about a ton of racist, deplorable stories when we got to Ty Cobb, but he mostly left it alone
Honestly seems like a huge leak, imo.
Points for honesty, at least
https://twitter.com/tigers/status/1532901829167693826?s=21&t=_G6g8l40nKQr1mlersVlaA
2 Likes
I have a feeling that the Mets loss to the Dodgers is sort of a preview of this year’s NLCS
Going back to names, the Pirates just called up Travis Swaggerty.
2 Likes
That’s such a bizarre tell.
I love the fake shake-off, though. In high school, we had a shake-off sign. My catcher would sometimes use it a few times in a row just to make the other team think I had a million different pitches.
You’d be surprised by how many guys have tells like this. There’s another one here that’s way more subtle that I always look for first. Check out when his hand goes into the glove on the offspeed pitches. He cranks or ratchets the ball to find the grip. The batter may not be able to see it, especially LHBs, but it only takes the smallest wiggle to tip it, and guys like Darvish and Strasburg have been lit up on that before (in the WS, which Strasburg corrected and dominated mid-game, Darvish did not and got crushed). At first I thought it was gonna be the runner seeing it and relaying it. But yeah, while I was focused on that I noticed his head was all over the place in a Teddy KGB Oreo kind of way lol.
1 Like
The group thing is understandable, the head thing is just weird. I’m guessing it takes him longer to find his grip on the offspeed pitch and he unconsciously drops his head as a way of concentrating.
I think I’ve seen people tossed without hitting a batter before but it is usually more egregious, like you throw the pitch behind the hitter.
Who the hell is gonna bean somebody intentionally in a close game in the 9th inning on a 2-0 count?
I mean that was a slider, not a fastball. If you’re gonna pitch at someone it’s not gonna have movement on it.
1 Like